The Twilight Movie: Vampires vs Werewolves

Vampires and werewolves are two mystical species which are often pitted against each other in horror and fantasy pop culture. Some stories even have vampires who are werewolves or werewolf vampires, combining the two supernatural tales into an even more intriguing version. The Twilight series isn't one of them.

In Twilight, we have a vampire and a werewolf pitted against each other to win the love of one human teenage girl, Bella Swan. The vampire, Edward Cullen, is a romantic, seventeen year old whose eyes are black when he is dangerously hungry and amber when his hunger is satisfied. Being vampire, his hunger is for blood. However, like the rest of his family, the Cullens, he is a vegetarian. The vampire version of vegetarianism is abstaining from human blood, relying on animal blood for nourishment. This is because when vampires feed, they drain their victims of blood and kill them. To feed on humans is tantamount to murder and the head of the Cullen family, Carlisle, the son of a pastor in his human life, values human life and refuses to kill humans. He discovered that it was possible as a vampire, to live solely on animal blood. He taught his family to do the same.

The difference between regular vampires and the vegetarian ones in the fantasy world created by Stephanie Meyers, can be seen in their eyes. Regular vampires have red eyes when they are well fed. Vegetarian vampires have amber eyes. Vampires are amazingly strong and fast. Edward was a distance from her when Tyler's van almost hits her. The van would have hit and killed Bella had it not been for Edward. Instantly, he was between Bella and the van. He caught the van with his bare hands. His strength was so immense, he left finger imprints in the metal.

Vampires are kind of like Superman, except that they were born on planet Earth and not Krypton. And they don't fly. And they drink blood. Speaking of flying, although vampires can't fly, they can leap incredibly high and move amazingly fast. (Superman's super speed?). They can run so fast, it feels like flying. So while Superman carried Lois Lane in a breathtaking flight through Metropolis, Edward Cullen, carried Bella Swan in a breath taking run.

Vampires have marble hard skin. The only thing that penetrates vampire skin is vampire teeth.. or werewolf's teeth and claws. Kind of like Superman's invulnerable skin.

Vampires are immortal. They stay at the age the were when they became vamps. Like Edward Cullen who will always be seventeen. To Bella's chagrin, she will age. He won't. When he is ninety and wrinkled, Edward would still be seventeen, beautiful and perfect. How Bella longs to join him as a blood sucking immortal. The vegetarian kind, of course.

Werewolves on the other hand exist to keep vampires in check.

Jacob Black, Bella's best friend and soulmate is a werewolf.

Werewolves can be likened to Wolverine. They heal incredibly fast. They can be cut by knives or sharp objects but they heal almost instantly, making them pretty hard to kill.

It is the magic of the Quilette tribe, their tribe that enables them to make the change. Jacob's people carry the latent werewolf gene. When there aren't any vampires around, they live and die like normal people. Once there are vamps in the vicinity, the werewolf gene kicks in and you have an explosion in the werewolf population.

Werewolves too are incredibly strong. Jacob can toss a motor bike around as if it were a rag doll. Considering their mortal enemies are vampires with superhuman strength, they have to be freakishly strong too. And fast.

In a later book, werewolves pursued and caught a rogue vampire on foot. They can outrun vampires who can move at superspeed, so both species are evenly matched.

As for immortality, like vampires, werewolves don't age. But they do have the option of growing old when they retire. If they stop changing to wolves, the immortality ends too and they can grow old gracefully like normal humans.

While Vampires are very cold, werewolves are feverishly hot.

Both species cannot stand each other. They find each other's scent incredibly offensive. So after hanging out with the Cullens, when she visits her werewolf pals at La Push, they keep going on about how she stinks, with that sickly sweet bloodsucker smell.

Likewise, after hanging out with the wolves, Bella returns to Edward and his family and everyone, including Alice, finds her really smelly, with the doggy wolfy smell clinging onto her.

In Twilight, the werewolves and vegetarian vampires coexist without killing each other, thanks to a treaty made by Ephraim Black, Jacob's grandpa. But that isn't going to stop the rivalry between the vamp and the wolf for the human gal's attention.

Twilight Movie Edward Cullen and Jacob Black
The love triangle between Bella, Edward and Jacob